Music

3/17/11 in a nutshell…
Sometimes, we wake up in the morning in a fundamentally different world than the one we went to sleep in the previous night. This time, our world has been irrevocably altered by a triple-threat disaster triggered by the monster 9.0 Quake Of 2011 that struck off the east coast of northern Honshu, Japan the weekend of 3/11. The opening oldies set of this week’s RSST was quite Japan-centric, and included a couple of lush, lovely mid-‘70s Haruomi Hosono rocksteady orchestrations, with his groups Tin Pan Alley and Bon Voyage Co. Unless I hear evidence to the contrary, I figure the then-future YMO member must be the guy who introduced ska and rocksteady to Japan_ 4 years before 2Tone was launched in the UK!
The highlight of Sherwood’s set must be the three Firecrackers he set off consecutively_ those belonging to Martin Denny, Yellow Magic and Senor Coconut, respectively. There were a few of Toho’s giant monsters (daikaiju) running around loose, including Mothra, Anguiras and Godzilla’s robotic double/nemesis Mechagodzilla. Hammond B-3 monster Akiko Tsuruga also made her Sherwood’s Planet debut in high style. The 4@4 was the Air Space Museum of Ska (all-Japan edition). We didn’t have the Japanese cover of Monkey Man (trombone legend Rico accompanying Ore Ska Band) so we pulled in Reel Big Fish to do the job, before hi-tailing it back across the Pacific to take us up to The End. Also missing-in-action this week: Madness’ Honda ad theme In The City which we hope to get on next week. Vrooooom!

It was called the Tower. It didn’t need another name. The Foshay Tower, at its founding in 1929 and for nearly a half a century, reigned as the tallest building in Minneapolis. Though the Tower sank into a period of gentle neglect, it was revitalized in 2008 as the upscale W. Hotel-Minneapolis. The same cannot be said for the Tower’s builder, Wilbur B. Foshay, whose comet-like rise as a powerful Midwestern utilities magnate was embodied in the obelisk structure. Just two months after the Tower’s dedication, on October 29, 1929, Wilbur Foshay lost everything in the Stock Market Crash, save for his his reputation. That, however, was defamed in 1931, when he stood trial for mail fraud, in what was largely a Ponzi scheme.

Wilbur B. Foshay: The Man & His Tower, Part I

In Part I of this two-part documentary, Foshay: The Man and His Tower, KFAI producer Britt Aamodt explores the meteoric rise of the WB Foshay utilities empire, which at one time stretched from Minnesota to Central America. Combining interviews, historical research and Wilbur Foshay’s own words, Aamodt paints a portrait of an era rash big dreams, economic speculation, and a bigger fall—telling the tale of how the Great Depression stripped Wilbur Foshay of his empire.

Wilbur B. Foshay: The Man & His Tower, Part II

In Part II of this documentary, Foshay: The Man and His Tower, KFAI producer Britt Aamodt takes up the narrative of Wilbur Foshay, examining his luxurious Minneapolis lifestyle—the houses, the gold faucets in the Tower offices—and how this bumptious businessman picked himself up after the Crash of 1929, only to receive word that he was being indicted for mail fraud. One of the biggest trials of the day took place in Minneapolis, sending Foshay to Leavenworth Prison, and a Minnesota family to their deaths, in the fallout from the trial. Aamodt follows Foshay after his release from prison, when the man who built the Tower sought to rebuild his life in small-town Colorado.